


For Want of a Spoon

by ProwlingThunder



Series: Dogtags [1]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Artem is a Househusband, Every Soldier Ever, Gen, M/M, Multiple Survivor AU, Pre-Vault, Sanctuary Hills was a Soldier Town, This is Not A Kitchen, pre-game, when he wants to be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2016-05-18
Packaged: 2018-06-09 03:50:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6888742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProwlingThunder/pseuds/ProwlingThunder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sanctuary Hills is great, and the house is great, and the kitchen is... small.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Want of a Spoon

Ren had told him that Sanctuary Hills was a small community designed for retired service members and their families. Artem had not  _ quite _ believed him, though he had been willing enough to indulge in the potential of a place built for some of the soldiers to make a home away from protesters. It could hardly be easy for them, to come back from the war fronts, both near and over-seas, to hear people hurling slurs at them.

There were fewer every day, he suspected; it didn't make sense for people to be so adamant about  _ not _ fighting, when the battle spilled into their own yards. When wars made it into Russia, the least of all civilians understood it was time to take up a pitchfork and do something about it. Except in winter. Russian winters did away with intruders on it's own.

But there was nowhere in Russia that he remembered which was set aside for the returning soldiers. It was  _ good _ that there would be for Ren's people. It was better that those who were not fighting would make it so. That people understood now what a soldier needed; space and security, to be with people who understood the demons which they fought with and away from those who could not understand.

He wished the news would report such things, instead of the protests. He wished to hear stories of soldiers coming home to hold their babies and kiss their spouses. It was good to hear of the bad things, to know how both the war was going and the things at home. It was important to know. In this way he knew who he had not lost.

But Artem wanted the happy things too. There were never enough happy things.

Artem wanted those happy things for the people Renigald led.

Renigald bribed him with grandchildren, which was entirely the only reason Artem consented to move. The King estate had been his home for nearly three decades. He liked the house, and the woods it was set on. It was private. No one could find the bodies.

The house in Sanctuary Hills did not have that. Artem was not as disappointed with that as he was with the kitchen.

It wasn’t a bad kitchen, exactly. It was actually a very good kitchen, for the middle of suburbia; plenty of cabinets, drawers, shelving space. There was a bit of a wall and a bar that kept it separated from the dining room space, which opened into a living room. It was a nice floor plan for a young mother with children to watch and a husband to cook for. Set the wee things in the living room and she would be able to see them from anywhere in the kitchen. It was a good design. It was just…

Small.

Artem was used to a much larger kitchen. Big enough for a table, which was in turn large enough to stretch out the body of a full grown... deer. He was used to a kitchen with dozens of drawers, each bearing different cutlery and supplies. All the spoons were in one drawer, and all the forks in another, except any of them which went with the precious dishes. Those had their own space.

There were rows and rows of knives.

He was used to enough cabinetry that he had pans for everything he could possibly want to make. He had a spice rack that filled a whole wall. The countertop was large enough he could cook a full-course Thanksgiving dinner and still have extra surface. In his possession had been a stove top with eight burners, and he had two entirely separate ovens.

There had been three sinks, one of them twice as deep as strictly required for his larger pots.

Artem eyed the kitchen from hell and decided he was going back to war after all.


End file.
